The Cosmos and Terra ecosystems are literally exploding. What's in for $ATOM and $LUNA stakeholders?

I found Cosmos to be innovative, solid tech, serious blockchain stuff, but $ATOM was pretty boring last year. Like many other coins there wasn't really a utility for $ATOM except holding or staking them. "Creating an Internet of Blockchains" has now become reality on Cosmos with the launch of the IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication) protocol. Check it out on Osmosis Lab and Gravity Dex' Emeris - both offering DeFi features as automated market makers (AMM): You can exchange and swap IBC-enabled tokens or throw them among with $ATOM into liquidity pools and earn rewards.
DeFi has finally arrived in Cosmos.

Let it rain on Terra

No need to write much about Terra which is part of the Cosmos fam, developed on Cosmos' Tendermint framework and fueled by its native token $LUNA.
Early longterm holders of $LUNA must be partying everyday, all day long (you understand, just look at $LUNA's chart). And many incl. me mini-shrimp are staking their $LUNAs on-chain. 

And there is more reason to party!

The staking APR isn't really that high, but by staking $LUNA you receive additional rewards: weekly $ANC and $MIR airdrops. Both are governance tokens of the highly successful DeFi protols Anchor and Mirror Protocol. Terra's stablecoin UST earns you up to 20% in interest, and that led to an explosion of UST volume. (Name one damn bank that gives you 20% in interest for your fiat money...)

Both protocols form Terra's DeFi backbone - so to say - and fleets of dev teams are working on more than 80 upcoming protocols and Terra projects. More than 80 and it's growing!

Lunatics know: many upcoming projects will do airdrops for $LUNA stakeholders. Some of those airdrops might be small, but some might even do a genesis airdrop - which are the juicy ones depending on the amount of $LUNA that you have staked (on-chain, your keys, on TerraStation).

Head over to some great community-operated sites that help keep tracking the explosive amount of projects and airdrops like Learn Terra or Terra Drops. But the most comprehensive list is being compiled by one of my favorite Staking Providers 'Smart Stake'. Check it out, it's awesome and it lists up those projects that plan to do an airdrop.

Staking $ATOM and party

Apart from $LUNA's party boat, Cosmos enjoys massive growth of its ecosystem too with new blockchains and projects that seek massive adoption. 

If you haven't staked $ATOM, you've missed out on the upcoming JUNO blockchain airdrop, the pStake airdrop and the very juicy OSMO airdrop. For those projects snapshots had been taken earlier this year, but there are confirmed and unconfirmed airdrops based on future snapshots. 

The community site Wen mainnet compiles a status quo on the Cosmos ecosystem incl. an airdrop section. 

Snapshots already taken:

- Juno (smart contracts network)
- pStake (liquid staking with $ATOM - sounds very interesting) 
- Osmosis (AMM)

Upcoming: 

- Koala Network (meme coin)
- Sputnik Network (DeFi)
- Cosmos Gaming Hub (gaming platform on Cosmos)
- Bitsong (music platform)
- Hansum (no idea)
- Chihuahua (useless meme coin)
- Ethermint (brings EVM to Cosmos)

There is and will be more projects airdropping, noteworthy a potential airdrop for ATOM holders from Gnoland, a project developed by Jae Kwon, Co-founder of Tendermint. 

If you're desperate in getting the latest, join the Cosmonauts on Telegram "Cosmos Ecosystem Chat".

So,  staking good for you? Wen lambo?

Staking means patience. Invest only money that you don't need in the near future. It's a longterm investment. You have to believe in the project. If the price tanks because Bitcoin decides to crash again, your staking rewards are worthless.

If you decide to stake, say bye-bye to your precious coins as they will be resting on someone else' server called node, validator, baker, etc. You won't see them for 21 further days if you decide to unstake. I hate myself for having unstaked some little bags of solid L1 Proof-of-Stake coins in the past, because I've learned, even after the biggest hit, they recover at some time (or do better). Of course, that doesn't apply for all coins and all times. This is no financial advise, ok?

We are all longterm bullish anyway, aren't we?

And lastly,

Those airdrops can be quite valuable in the future, but more importantly, Terra is set to complete deployment of Columbus 5 mainnet by end of September. That's a massive upgrade. It also includes Cosmos' Stargate Upgrade and enables Terra to communicate with other blockchains via IBC.

And that means not only $LUNA, the Terra tokens, but its stablecoins and their frontrunner $UST could come to Gravity Dex and Osmosis and more protocols.

That's big. That's huge. For both the Cosmos and Terra ecosystem.